Take Me Apart

(Paperback)

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An Indie Next Pick for May 2020

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Journalist Kate Aitken leaves New York for a fresh start in California and a new job: as an archivist for the estate of famed photographer Miranda Brand, who died mysteriously some decades earlier. Mirandas son, Theo, has returned to the family home after his fathers death, and needs Kate to organise his mothers work and the mess of her personal effects.

The further Kate digs into the material, the more a picture begins to emerge of a vibrant artist buckling under the pressures of ambition, motherhood and marriage. But Kate has secrets of her own, including a growing attraction to the enigmatic Theo, and when she stumbles across Mirandas diary, her curiosity spirals into a dangerous obsession.

A darkly seductive tale of two magnetic women pinned down by secrets and lies, Take Me Apart is also a chilling, thought-provoking take on art, illness and power, from a spellbinding new voice in psychological suspense.

Reviews

A dark, thoughtful thriller. * Washington Post *
At the center of this dark drama is mental illnessReading it is painful. Yet, these are some of the novels strongest pagesA reading experience like peeling an onion layer by layerYou can put this book down, just not for long. * USA Today *
Sligar delivers an intriguing mystery while tackling big themes, especially sexism and the societal restraints placed on womens bodies and minds. The results are spellbinding. A raw and sophisticated debut. * Kirkus, starred review *
A perceptive debutWith a cool style and fast pace, Sligar achieves a propulsive exploration of these ambitious womens inner turbulence in response to an abusive man in each of their lives. * Publishers Weekly *
A study of two damaged and sympathetic womenLove story, hate story, mysteryall in one. * Library Journal *
Sligar handles her intricately structured story's threads with delicacy in this impressive, suspenseful debut. * Booklist *
My favorite debut crime novel of 2020just spot on about transforming life into art and who gets sacrificedparticularly womenas a result. * The Crime Lady *
Art! Archives! Big houses! Brooding, handsome millionaires! This book has everything. * CrimeReads *
Dark and poeticReaders get a strong, brilliant, flawed woman that is a truly memorable character whose haunting voice permeates the narrativeFast and immediate, real and relatable. * Criminal Element *
A thriller so raw and gripping, you wont be able to put it downThe mystery will captivate you while the writing makes everything that much better. * debutiful *
'By turns, a West Coast art-world satire, an erotic romance and a descent into madness [with a] gratifying conclusion.' * Wall Street Journal *
'A rich, impressive debut.' * Buzzfeed *
A sun-soaked noir...Like any good noir, Take Me Apart has frequent flashes of fine art, and many passages sparkle with Sligars style...Sligar explores the sticky territory of power dynamics between men and women, whether boss and employee, teacher and student, or husband and wife. She threads a scathing feminist critique throughout both narratives, nailing all the right talking points of the current discourse.' * LA Review of Books *
A haunting story about grappling with demons and a hunt for the truthSligar takes the best of thriller, mystery, and romance to create a story bursting with life. * Paperback Paris *
'A juicy thriller.' * Entertainment Weekly *
Take Me Apart is an ambitious, intelligent, and ridiculously readable literary thriller that takes on art, sexism, violence, and mental illnessall set against an evocatively rendered Northern Californian landscape. Ive lived in the Bay Area for a decade, and though I was quite certain the books California town was made up, I still googled Callinas, just in case. Thats how good Sara Sligar is. * Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye Vitamin *
What a clever, visceral thriller. A raw, unfiltered twist on gaslighting that challenges how society treats women. It made me sad, angry, and fired up. * Araminta Hall, author of Our Kind of Cruelty *
Sligar masterfully alternates between Kates perspectiveand the documents Kate is finding in the disorganized pilesTake Me Apart is an incisive look at women in art, domestic violence, and the complexities of legacy. * Emily Burack, Hey Alma *
Take Me Apart is a stunning debut. In gorgeous prose, Sara Sligar creates a haunting and decidedly feminist literary thriller that explores mental illness, violence, and the nature of obsession. I loved this novel so much that I blew off all my responsibilities, turned off my phone, and blistered through the whole thing in one sitting. Unforgettable and thought-provoking, Take Me Apart has my highest recommendation. * Angie Kim, author of Miracle Creek *
Take Me Apart is such a delicious novel: perfectly plotted, atmospheric, disturbing, sadeven sexy. Sara Sligar brings both the northern California coast and the personal history of a brilliant artist to vivid life. I couldn't put it down. * Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State *
A smart, post-modern book that takes on the complexities of gendered mental illness and trauma at an engrossing clip. With a complicated visual artist at its narrative center, Take Me Apart teases out the tensions of visibility and fame versus the hidden, unseen wounds of home and interiority, and asks the hard questions of what it means to create as a womancreate art, create life, and create yourself. * Caite Dolan-Leach, author of Dead Letters *
Sara Sligars obsession-worthy debut combines the penetrating insight of the best art criticism with the seductive menace of a modern Gothic romance. Take Me Apart is my favorite kind of thriller: masterfully paced and psychologically precise, with subtle twists that reveal themselves like a developing photograph. * Layne Fargo, author of Temper *
This feverish tale handles both mystery and trauma with aplomb. * BookPage *
A riveting and nuanced look at mental illness, art, abuse and power; a feminist whodunnit, a gorgeously written literary love story with the propulsive engine of a thrillerIf youre looking for a cocktail of suspense, mystery, romance, and powerful social and psychological observation, then youll love this. * Anna Downes *
A fascinating, page-turning debut. A dive into the complex world of two women, connected by the impossible expectations that society has put on them, and damaged by their inability to meet or manage those expectations. * Pile by the Bed *
'American writer Sara Sligar gives us an archivist as central protagonist in her stylish and compulsive thriller, Take Me Apart. Can the meticulous, monotonous act of cataloguing a dead womans papers become fatal Research addicts will recognise the apprehension. * Clare Wright *
IntriguingSophisticatedA clever introduction to an author to watch. * Good Reading *
Powerful. * Herald Sun *
'This book is a great whodunnit that reads like immersive literary fiction and it has a lot to say about art motherhood and mental illness. * Primer *

Author Bio

Sara Sligar is an author and academic based in Los Angeles, where she teaches English and creative writing as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania and a masters in History from the University of Cambridge. Her writing has been published in McSweeneys, Quartz, The Hairpin and other outlets. Take Me Apart is her first novel.